Dog Days of Summer The Origins of How We Perceive the Slowest and Hottest Time of the Year

Ironic, isn't it, that during a time when people travel the most in summer, it gets the designation of dog days of summer. Despite half the population of America doing that staycation thing this year or just going on vacation where they readily look forward to the vacation from the vacation, most people have fun during a time that's long been associated with things that aren't pleasant. No wonder Tennessee Williams had most of his plays take place during the dog days of summer, because the tempers flare and sweat flings while the mercury rises. There's some more irony for you when the dog days of summer are supposed to indicate a sluggish period of summer...roughly any time after the Fourth of July through to right before Labor Day. While you might automatically associate a lazy dog sleeping on a porch somewhere during a heat wave as the definition of how Dog Days started, the dog reference actually comes from the star Sirius--otherwise known as the Dog Star. In ancient cultures, the rising of Sirius in July and August gave indication of late summer. Back in the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, Sirius must have looked spectacular in the night sky long before street lights were a glint in Thomas Edison's eye. If you want to associate dog days of summer with a time when, in your childhood, you stood outside with friends or family to stargaze on a hot, clear summer night--then you have a direct connection to the ancients. Probably most of the American populace now wouldn't be able to locate Sirius in the dog days of summer sky no thanks to street lights in every urban neighborhood obscuring even the brightest star.

Well, if you go with astronomy and the appearance of Sirius in the sky during dog days, then Dog Days of Summer actually ends on August 11 according to the calendar. That makes Hollywood unsurprisingly wrong when they label late August as the period when they offload all their clunker movies for the summer season and put the "Dog Days of Summer" stamp on the release dates. Not that we'd expect Hollywood to follow astronomy and besides the fact that others say that the dates of Dog Days will all depend on where you live. At least Hollywood doesn't sacrifice a brown dog this time of year as some ancient cultures did, even though Hollywood probably would do such a thing if they thought it could ward off bad box office returns. For the ancients, human or animal sacrifices were common with the thought that the star Sirius was a quasi god that was bringing hot weather, hence making it tough to endure without our modern convenience of air conditioning. But it wasn't just hot weather that could potentially bring problems. Or then again, maybe it's a direct relation when you consider a longstanding legend of all the problems dog days causes in nature and people... Nature affecting humankind...and Hollywood...For a time in the 19th century, a lot of myths had developed about dog days of summer that might have been based on personal experiences of people not being able to escape the heat in July and August. It was said that our oceans became more violent, food and drink ended up going sour (from no refrigeration available yet) and that people would generally go mad. Yep, sounds like a typical urban hell during a heat wave with nothing but open windows to cool off everybody. Heat may be the single most potent part of nature affecting every living thing next to, still theoretically, full moons. Quite an interesting dichotomy there between the violent aspects of humans during Dog Days and the more lethargic side that started more with western pop culture. We all have to admit, though, that August in America is generally uniformly hot when you'll find plentiful supply of animals and humans acting lethargic as well as violently. And it all depends on the simple concept of who manages to have air conditioning and who doesn't. As we go back to the Dog Days of Summer for Hollywood, you have a wider picture of this time of year and how it applies to human nature. After all, when the weather gets hot, a lot of families go to movie theaters to watch those Dog Day movies Hollywood didn't think were worth releasing during the earlier summer rush. With that thought in mind, your local movie house may be the single place on the planet where the meaning, history, present and future of Dog Days of Summer all converge. The icing on the cake would be seeing Sirius rising in the sky as you leave the theater...


By Gregoriancant